Thankfully, sporting outcomes are not decided by reporters posing as mathematicians but, just for fun, the Province has done some strength of schedule calculations to predict what the Western Conference could look like come the final kick of the regular season.

First of all, the predicted standings, then I’ll explain the method and show the raw data.

For the sake of simplicity (read: laziness) it’s assumed here that Real Salt Lake will finish in the top two in the West, so they’ve been excluded. Chivas, despite the addition of El Cubo and their ability to cause the Whitecaps problems, will not make the playoffs, and neither will San Jose, based on a quick glance at their schedule. So, here’s what 2nd place through 7th looks like based on my method (I’ve left one decimal place in to show how tight the 5th-7th race is):

Less than one win separates fifth-place Dallas from 7th-place Vancouver, and the Caps face Dallas this weekend, and also play Colorado in a home-and-away to end the season. So, a couple of wins for the Caps in those matchups could well be the difference at the end of the day. Dallas and Colorado also play each other, Sept. 14, in Colorado, so that’s a huge game, too. It shouldn’t surprise anyone if the playoff race comes down to the final game of the season.

Portland’s trending downward these days and has injury trouble, but, based on these calculations, they’ll be safely in fourth thanks to a favourable schedule down the stretch.

The method

Lots of ways to go about this. I chose to focus solely on the opponent’s home or away record. I then took an average winning percentage for a team’s remaining opponents and determined how many points a team would gain based on that number.

Example: Vancouver

at Dallas (7-1-5 at home)
at San Jose (8-1-4 at home)
at Montreal (9-1-3 at home)
vs Salt Lake (5-6-3 on road)
vs Portland (2-4-8 on road)
at Seattle (7-1-3 at home)
at Colorado (7-3-4 at home)
vs Colorado (3-5-5 on road)

Total opponent record: 48-22-35Opponent win percentage: .568
1-.568 = .432, which is the Caps predicted win percentage
.432×3 = 1.3 points per game x 8 games = 10.4 points, which I added to their current total

Just for the sake of comparison, if you were to predict Vancouver’s remaining point total based on their current home points per game (2.0) and road points per game (0.75), they would net 9.75 more points in their remaining eight games, five of which are on the road. So, with rounding, these methods produce identical remaining point totals of 10.

Colorado, using their own home/away stats, would add 9.66 points instead of 9.52, and Dallas would add 11.38 points instead of 12.0, so the Caps would still just be in 7th, although Dallas and Colorado would flip places with the Rapids making the playoffs.

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